


Lament

by prairiecrow



Series: Dragon Space Nine [5]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Dragons, Grief, M/M, Other, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:20:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thoughts inspired by the death of a dragon at Fort Weyr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lament

**Author's Note:**

> A shameless Pern AU, folks. I hope you'll forgive me for the liberties I've taken and enjoy the story for what it is. The basic premise: a shuttle carrying Julian Bashir, Miles O'Brien, Kira Nerys and Elim Garak has crossed a dimensional rift and crash landed on Pern. The four Offworlders are taken in by Fort Weyr, where an accident of Impression leaves Bashir, Kira and Garak with dragons and Miles O'Brien alone at Smithcrafthall to continue figuring out the puzzle of how they might possibly get home again.

The keening of dragons awoke Garak in the dead of night: he started to sit up in the darkness, his heart pounding, but had to stop when his Threadscored side and leg refused to grant him a full range of motion. His mind flew out, fearful and seeking:  _Ziolth!_

The blue dragon was there, deeply asleep, finding surcease from the agony of his own wounds in blessed unconsciousness. Exhaling a long breath, Garak sank back onto the mattress and lay listening to the hymn of sorrow and mourning, wondering who had succumbed.

Beside him, Julian spoke quietly: "Tosorth." The grief in his lovely voice made Garak's heart ache; he reached out with his right hand and found the Human's, entwining their fingers tightly in a silent affirmation of their bond:  _We are still here. We live. We are together._

"Did you treat M'net?" Garak spoke in an equally low voice.

Julian was silent for a second or two. "Yes. He wasn't even touched by Thread, but Tosorth's spine was eaten through."

"Oh, my dearest." A slow squeeze. "There was nothing you could have done."

"Nothing but give him enough fellis juice to render him unconscious while his dragon died." The Human's tone was bitter now, full of regret.

They lay side by side, unspeaking. Garak stared at the shadowed ceiling overhead, thinking of Ziolth and the near-collision with Beloth that had sent them  _between_  into the cluster of Thread that had devastated the blue dragon's wing. His Obsidian Order-trained mind instantly presented three different ways to give W'nas, the brown's rider, an agonizing, bloody, screaming death. He slipped back into a torturer and assassin's role as easily as putting on a familiar and well-worn glove: usually Ziolth's loving presence kept such thoughts at bay, but tonight he was alone with the sincere desire to make W'nas, who had always been an antagonist, pay for what might well have been a deliberate misdeed.

It was a cold and steely paradigm, streamlined and elegant as a knife blade, and in his time he'd wielded it with consummate skill that had won the admiration of his superiors and the terror of his targets. W'nas, now… the man was too brutish and stupid to realize the danger that Garak presented, but as soon as he was able to walk and to fight again Garak would be in a position to teach him —

"It could have been you." Julian's whisper, infused with the threat of tears, brought him out of himself with an almost audible start. What was he thinking? Could he afford to murder a man in cold blood, no matter how egregious the provocation, when the love of the beautiful and compassionate Doctor might be the price he'd pay? Not to mention the sanctions he'd face for killing another dragonrider, penalties that would tear the life they'd managed to build together on Pern apart?

Julian shifted a little closer, moving with great care in an obvious attempt not to jostle Garak's Threadscored leg. He shifted enough to slip his arm around the younger man's shoulders and draw him to his side, braving the flashes of protesting pain from his wounds. "But it wasn't."

For an instant Julian resisted, then yielded, arranging himself carefully with his head on Garak's shoulder. "Oh, love." Now the tears slipped free, warm and wet on Garak's cold reptilian skin. "If it  _had_  been you, I… I don't know how I would have…"

"You'd still have Amorth," he pointed out with what he thought was admirable practicality.

"Who would also have lost Ziolth." A shaky laugh. "What a fine pair we'd be, both of us grey with mourning!"

"But you'd both survive." He briefly tightened his embrace of the slender shoulders. "One day I  _will_  die, and I expect you to carry on as bravely and as steadfastly as you possibly can."

"When you die," Julian whispered against his neckridge, "I expect you to give me plenty of warning, enough time to hold you and kiss you and tell you how very, very much I love you."

"With a roisterous bout of pre-mortality sex as well, I hope?"

This time his laugh was more genuine. "If we can manage it, yes."

"Good. I look forward to it." 

"But not in the foreseeable future."

He hesitated. Lying was first nature to him, but with Julian he had slowly been teaching himself new ways of living. "No," he said at last. "I sincerely hope not."

The Weyr's dragons had ceased their keening lament. Tosorth was gone, and M'net would be given a mercy draught to release him from the terrible pain of his loss. Tonight in Fort Weyr there would be many tears shed and in the morning the dragonriders would remember their fallen friend.

But he and Julian endured, with Ziolth and Amorth to love them. And in the final analysis that was all that truly mattered.

THE END

  
  
  



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